John Ivison: Disturbing new details about why TMU redacted the report into its institutional campus antisemitism

Earlier this month, I wrote that universities across the country are finally getting together to address the epidemic of antisemitism that has broken out on campuses across the country.

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I referred to a review of antisemitic incidents at Toronto Metropolitan University undertaken by retired justice Mary Lou Benotto and delivered to TMU last August. At the time, I said pages from the report were redacted on privacy grounds (several students were charged after the protests under review).

But I was wrong. The pages that were redacted were taken out to remove Benotto’s conclusion, stated clearly, that the university’s own codes of conduct were breached — a finding that would have forced TMU to take action that it apparently did not want to take.

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The review concluded that the absence of clear enforcement, combined with ambiguity around free expression and protest, contributed to escalating tensions and the perception that disruption carried few consequences.

The review was a damning indictment of TMU’s policies, but the absence of a clear conclusion of code-of-conduct breaches (at least in the published version) allowed the university administration enough wiggle room to kick the issue down the road.

Upon receipt, TMU announced it was appointing former Ontario premier Bob Rae to chair an implementation task force to consider the Benotto review and report back next spring.

By the time Rae delivers his findings, TMU president Mohamed Lachemi, an Algerian-Canadian engineer who was appointed in 2016, will have retired. The clean-up will be someone else’s problem — the current provost and vice-president, Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano, is set to take over next year.

It’s almost satirical in a Yes, Minister fashion: if you want to discredit an unwelcome report, you say you are waiting for the results of a wider, more detailed review which is still in preparation (and if there isn’t one pending, you commission one).

Prominent labour lawyer Howard Levitt in his Financial Post column called it “an investigation into an investigation”: the appointment of a task force that includes a number of TMU faculty members and others who have expressed public opposition to one of the key Benotto recommendations — namely adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

A child could see through the university administration’s machinations. The report is exhaustive in listing the relevant university codes and guidelines, including the Student Code For Non-Academic Conduct, which recognizes freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, provided those occur lawfully, without harassment, discrimination, intimidation or violence. The review meticulously details examples of members of the Students for Justice in Palestine organization engaging in intimidation and violence, in breach of that code, but Benotto’s subsequent conclusions have been redacted.

The published report includes Benotto’s statement that TMU must be prepared to enforce its codes of conduct consistently, but the published version redacts her finding that those codes were broken repeatedly.

In a statement responding to National Post’s questions about the erasure, TMU said the information was redacted on the advice of legal counsel to “protect the integrity and confidentiality of ongoing proceedings.”

“Your analysis fundamentally misinterprets the facts, leading to conclusions that are demonstrably incorrect,” the statement said. “The measures are necessary to ensure that established processes can proceed fairly and appropriately, without compromising the rights of those involved … We will not compromise the integrity of ongoing proceedings by disclosing information that must remain confidential.”

Note, the university is not saying the facts are wrong — and that the Benotto report did not find that the university’s codes of conduct were breached — it is saying I have somehow misinterpreted them, leading to conclusions that are incorrect.

Conveniently for the administration, it is not saying where the errors in my reasoning are to be found.

But a detailed analysis of the published review makes it difficult to reach any other conclusion than the one that TMU is in extreme damage-limitation mode.

The beauty of Benotto’s report is its simplicity. It concludes that the problem could be solved by establishing clear behavioural expectations and enforcing them consistently and transparently.

It does not need another six-month investigation to find out what happened or what should be done — even with the redactions.

Across its 190 pages, Benotto delves into incidents that took place in September and November 2025.

The September event was the disruption by the Students for Justice in Palestine of a Democracy Forum panel discussion on artificial intelligence. The activists shouted at attendees, calling them “war criminals,” “baby killers” and “murderers.” The event was aborted and a number of people were arrested, amid accusations of “brutalization” by the student protesters.

The November incident was an off-campus event sponsored by Students Supporting Israel that was broken up by SJP protesters, yelling accusations of “Zionist murderers.” This event was also cancelled; people were hospitalized and several students were arrested.

Benotto discovered a deeply polarized campus environment, shaped by the terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, 2023.

She concluded that the campus climate was deteriorating and similar events were likely to re-occur without decisive institutional action. Presumably, she didn’t mean another six-month review.

TMU should remain a place where even unpopular and controversial ideas must be expressed and challenged.

“(But) freedom of speech is not an unlimited right,” she said. Conduct that interferes with the ability of others to speak or participate in lawful university activities falls outside its protection.

TMU apparently didn’t want to hear those findings, such is the institutional rot that has set in under its current president.

The review found that certain professors no longer admitted where they worked because the university is perceived as hostile to the Jewish community. One tenured professor said that he would tell anyone in the Jewish community not to have their children apply to TMU because they’d be at risk of harassment, mistreatment, bullying or assault.

The most worrying details concern the group F4P — the university’s Faculty for Palestine — who were listed as being present at the September 2025 protest. In short, professors are sending kids out to get arrested, before circulating the narrative that they are being penalized for protesting.

The review refers to faculty members denying or minimizing the Holocaust and discussing how much violence is justifiable in support of pro-Palestinian activities.

Despite its stated principle of institutional neutrality, TMU’s sociology department issued a statement criticizing the university for the “systemic silencing” of Palestinian and Arab students.

TMU’s faculty association circulated a message from F4P in support of the pro-Palestinian student protests, while declining to distribute a response from a member of the Jewish Employees Community Network, Benotto’s review said.

An event sponsored by the faculty association advanced the position that Hamas should be regarded as a resistance movement and Gaza as a genocide, not a conflict.

It is clear to anyone who reads the Benotto investigation why the current TMU administration would want to embalm the report.

One retired judge encouraged me to continue putting pressure on the university, calling its efforts an attempt to dilute and shelve the Benotto report.

“The implementation task force is a joke and insult to her,” he said.

The Ontario government, which has recently threatened to cut operational funding to institutions that fail to address racism and hate, should take a closer look.

National Post

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